Via making a comeback? Isiah II uarch competes with kabini and baytrail...

[Exophase]

Patents ≠ products!

This is a really hard concept for some...

Just look at all the patent trolls who patent everything under the sun in the hopes that one day someone will infringe on it so they can collect licensing revenue. Like what Philips is doing with Nintendo right now.

 

[NostaSeronx]

Patents ≠ products!

Patents from a vulture market always equals products. It is only the amount of time that the patent becomes relevant to present to next-gen architectures.

AMD has a one year implementation gap from patent to architecture for small things. Like loop cache or loop decoding while for big architectural changes four to five years. Which are co-processor interfaces, High Bandwidth Memory, etc.

Intel, AMD, and VIA will always make use of their patents. Especially, if their are detailed enough to go step by step how it would work.

 

[jdubs03]

You shouldn't take NostaSeronx's speculation as fact, even if that's how he presents it.

VIA hasn't shown any incentive in developing their own ARM uarch, I don't see that changing now. And while it's common to see people say that supporting different ISAs is just a matter of including more decoders I don't think this is really the case in practice. If you look at something like Silvermont you can see the influence of x86 throughout the pipeline. A core that handles both x86 and ARM sounds like a core that isn't really excellent at either.

You have to ask yourself what the market potential is for VIA doing this. They've lost any hope at the netbook market years ago (which has itself mostly crashed) and getting into tablets is never going to happen. Forget phones, there's no way they'll scale power consumption down low enough without a totally new uarch and they're probably not up to the task of being competitive, especially with how far they've lagged in process adoption. The only place they really sell is embedded where no one is going to want to run both x86 and ARM in the same device.

The embedded market is going to experience a renaissance though, the internet of things is going to be big, so if VIA has a solid footing already in the market they stand to benefit. The issue will come down to performance/energy/price, and if the rumors are true, we know only a tiny amount about performance.

Patents contribute to products.

 

[Exophase]

The embedded market is going to experience a renaissance though, the internet of things is going to be big, so if VIA has a solid footing already in the market they stand to benefit. The issue will come down to performance/energy/price, and if the rumors are true, we know only a tiny amount about performance.

Can you give even one reason why a dual ARM/x86 CPU would be desirable for IoT?

Personally I see IoT as playing in a power consumption margin that goes below phones, a market that Nano already has no chance of scaling down to (unless they radically changed their uarch). Even Intel wants to push Quark there instead of Silvermont.

Patents contribute to products.

Not 100% of the time. Far from it. I have zero doubt that I can find patents from Intel, AMD, or VIA that didn't end up in a product, but Seronx will probably say that they'll be in products that are just around the corner or that they actually are in products right now, so I'm not going to bother.

 

[jdubs03]

Can you give even one reason why a dual ARM/x86 CPU would be desirable for IoT?

Personally I see IoT as playing in a power consumption margin that goes below phones, a market that Nano already has no chance of scaling down to (unless they radically changed their uarch). Even Intel wants to push Quark there instead of Silvermont.



Not 100% of the time. Far from it. I have zero doubt that I can find patents from Intel, AMD, or VIA that didn't end up in a product, but Seronx will probably say that they'll be in products that are just around the corner or that they actually are in products right now, so I'm not going to bother.

I wasn't really saying they could succeed, I was more of referring to a company having a competitive advantage in a specific area, with that area growing they could benefit.

Personally, a dual-function CPU doesn't seem to make sense for IoT. I think it'll be ARMy vs. Intel/AMD in that segment, like the ULP market above.

In terms of patents, I should have clarified only a varying percentage are used, especially in end products. But even then, some patents can contribute indirectly (one may have led to another).

 

[Exophase]

I wasn't really saying they could succeed, I was more of referring to a company having a competitive advantage in a specific area, with that area growing they could benefit.

Personally, a dual-function CPU doesn't seem to make sense for IoT. I think it'll be ARMy vs. Intel/AMD in that segment, like the ULP market above.

VIA may well play ARM products in IoT, but they'll run up against a million other companies doing the same. Not sure what they'll bring to the table here.

I think there's very little actual product overlap between VIA ARM SoCs, which are made by WonderMedia (and use very low end and old apps processors like ARM11), and their x86 CPUs which are made by Centaur. VIA doesn't really seem that great at integrating its subsidiaries in general, which could explain why Nano CPUs have yet to end up on the same die as Chrome GPUs.

In terms of patents, I should have clarified only a varying percentage are used, especially in end products. But even then, some patents can contribute indirectly (one may have led to another).

Sure. Patents can give a hint at what might be released. And they definitely give a hint at what the company is or at least was working on. But too many people are using them as a crystal ball to tell the future with perfect accuracy.

In this case it looks like VIA legitimately put some effort into figuring out how to make their Nano core work with ARM instructions. And this happened at least a few years ago. I don't know where they expected the industry to go then, but I have a good feeling that it didn't play out like they thought it may have. There were some Windows/Android hybrid tablets that were released with zero fanfare, and I think that's a good indication for how much the mainstream markets want ARM/x86 CPUs (and the embedded markets want it considerably less)

Saying that VIA is going to go from selling x86 and ARM SoCs to just x86/ARM hybrid is crazy, their Nano parts are nothing at all like their ARM parts. You can't just take one of these Nano CPUs modified for ARM execution, drop it in a WonderMedia SoC, and call it a day - even if that wasn't a major engineering hurdle for them it'd totally throw it out of the price and power markets those SoCs are designed for.

 

[monstercameron]

I guess it was somewhat obvious that they were making a new cpu but I guess it's confirmed...
https://twitter.com/VIAmkt/status/485979799295242243

the engineers are working very hard (and very smart) on the new nano, we are looking forward seeing it too!

 

[jdubs03]

Yea patents aren't everything, that's what we have trade secrets for.

 

[Vesku]

New VIA QuadCore CN-R in SiSoftware Official Live Ranker
VIA QuadCore @ 1600MHz (4C 1.6GHz, 2MB L2)
source: www.sisoftware.eu

Looks like it has a 2GHz turbo. Looks like its overall performance is about equivalent to a mobile core 2 duo @ ~2GHz, although it does have more features such as AES-NI. If it's 10-15W and cheap can see it as a Beema and Bay Trail alternative.

 

[monstercameron]

update, reveal is tomorrow.
http://www.centtech.com/

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

This is the same old story we've heard for

Via C3

Via C7

and Via Nano / Nano X2.

As soon as third party reviews come out the benchmarks aren't competitive.

It's not like they are vaporware....

You can buy one if you want. I've built 2 desktops powered by Via CPU's just to see them run.

Jetway liquidates motherboards for dirt cheap on ebay -- so I picked up a Via C7 and a Nano motherboard..... They are excellent for office tasks, use very reliable components and draw nearly no electricity. They are not the blue screen of death monsters than Cyrix used to be known for. The non-profit that is running them is very happy with them.

 

[Idontcare]

It's not like they are vaporware....

You can buy one if you want. I've built 2 desktops powered by Via CPU's just to see them run.

Jetway liquidates motherboards for dirt cheap on ebay -- so I picked up a Via C7 and a Nano motherboard..... They are excellent for office tasks, use very reliable components and draw nearly no electricity. They are not the blue screen of death monsters than Cyrix used to be known for. The non-profit that is running them is very happy with them.

Owned a Cyrix chip, in my experience they were only a BSOD generator if not cooled adequately (like any OC'ed chip would be). Other than that, you got what you paid for and nothing less.

 

[monstercameron]

lo dese noobs reset dur timur #doritos #yolo
http://www.centtech.com/

 

[NTMBK]

Wow, they managed to make their new website laggy as hell on a quad-core 3GHz processor. That's some quality engineering right there.

 

[AtenRa]

It is always nice to still have VIA around :thumbsup:

 

[BigDaveX]

There are times I wonder where the computer industry would be now if Via had stuck with their original Cyrix-derived design for the C3 instead of throwing it out in favor of the cheaper and much cooler IDT core they bought up at the same time.

If nothing else, we probably wouldn't have Mini-ITX, considering Via created that to show off the C3's low power consumption. I suppose Intel and AMD would have eventually moved toward smaller, cooler machines (Transmeta proved the market slot existed, even if their CPUs generally weren't very good), but it might have taken them longer.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I recognize that woman from their video awhile back.
These people are a small group literally baking every chip personally

Anything is possible, i'd love to see a breakthrough out of the little guy.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Hmm, looks like a few more specs are available, but no TDP.

So, 40nm process, MCM setup. Huh.

edit: oops, did not read text. 27.5W TDP.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm, looks like a few more specs are available, but no TDP.

So, 40nm process, MCM setup. Huh.

With their low power design, they also offer industry-leading energy efficiency with the VIA QuadCore 1.2+ GHz processor delivering a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of only 27.5 watts.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to put it in quotes. That's directly from your link, it does specify the TDP.

 

[mistersprinkles]

The next-gen architecture that is coming out from VIA is a hybrid ARM/x86 core. At boot-up you can choose ARM or x86 as the ISA. ARM and x86 sales will eventually be one in the same at VIA because of the hybrid arch.

One AND the same... Where did you get one IN the same? :$

 

[NTMBK]

They'd better hurry up and ship that part already. AMD have had 28nm Jaguar out for a year and a half, and are moving to 20nm next year.

 

[Homeles]

Leadership in Performance per Watt

I highly doubt that.

 

[DrMrLordX]

With their low power design, they also offer industry-leading energy efficiency with the VIA QuadCore 1.2+ GHz processor delivering a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of only 27.5 watts.

Is this intended to be ironic? There are plenty of Kabini parts that would outperform a 1.2 ghz (turbo or no turbo) VIA Quadcore with a TDP officially listed as 25W.

edit: so this is what I get for skipping the text and going to the spec list. Oops! Funny place to list the TDP, mind you.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

Is this intended to be ironic? There are plenty of Kabini parts that would outperform a 1.2 ghz (turbo or no turbo) VIA Quadcore with a TDP officially listed as 25W.

Yeah -- as someone who has actually used a Via Quadcore -- I can tell you it's a nice little chip.... But it is totally out of its league competing against the quad core Athlon 5350.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is this intended to be ironic? There are plenty of Kabini parts that would outperform a 1.2 ghz (turbo or no turbo) VIA Quadcore with a TDP officially listed as 25W.

Sorry, that was just a quote from your link, showing that they indeed did specify a TDP.